The Reef Islands – Santa Cruz languages (usually shortened to Reefs – Santa Cruz, abbreviated RSC) are a branch of the Oceanic languages comprising the languages of the

Santa Cruz Islands The Santa Cruz Islands are a group of islands in the Pacific Ocean, part of Temotu Province of the nation of Solomon Islands discovered by the Spaniards. They lie approximately 250 miles (400 km) to the southeast of the Solomon Islands ...

and

Reef Islands The Reef Islands are a loose collection of 16 islands in the northwestern part of the Solomon Islands province of Temotu. These islands have historically also been known by the names of Swallow Islands and Matema Islands. Geography The islan ...

: * Äiwoo (also known as ''Reefs'') *languages of

Nendö island Nendö is the largest of the Santa Cruz Islands, located in the Temotu province of Solomon Islands. The island is also known as Santa Cruz, Nendo, Ndeni, Nitendi or Ndende. The name ''Santa Cruz'' was given to the island in 1595 by the Spa ...

(Santa Cruz): ** Nanggu (also known as ''Engdewu'') ** Natügu ** Nalögo ** Noipä (Noipx)

Background

The debate in Oceanic linguistics dated from the Second International Conference on Austronesian Linguistics in 1978, where two opposing papers were presented. Peter Lincoln argued that the Reefs – Santa Cruz languages were Oceanic, while Stephen Wurm argued that they were

Papuan languages The Papuan languages are the non- Austronesian and non- Australian languages spoken on the western Pacific island of New Guinea in Indonesia and Papua New Guinea, as well as neighbouring islands, by around 4 million people. It is a strictly geogr ...

Classification

These languages were only definitively classified as part of the

Oceanic Oceanic may refer to: *Of or relating to the ocean *Of or relating to Oceania **Oceanic climate **Oceanic languages **Oceanic person or people, also called "Pacific Islander(s)" Places * Oceanic, British Columbia, a settlement on Smith Island, ...

subgroup of the Austronesian family after a series of papers that refuted the three major arguments for classifying them as either primarily

or at least heavily influenced by a Papuan substrate. * Malcolm Ross and Åshild Næss (2007) demonstrated regular sound correspondences between the reconstructed ancestor

Proto-Oceanic Proto-Oceanic (abbr. ''POc'') is a proto-language that historical linguists since Otto Dempwolff have reconstructed as the hypothetical common ancestor of the Oceanic subgroup of the Austronesian language family. Proto-Oceanic is a descendant ...

and RSC languages. Among other changes, RSC languages are characterized by a pervasive syncope of vowels and truncation of syllables. *Åshild Næss (2006) showed that the "multiple noun classes" in RSC do not resemble Papuan-style

gender Gender is the range of characteristics pertaining to femininity and masculinity and differentiating between them. Depending on the context, this may include sex-based social structures (i.e. gender roles) and gender identity. Most cultures ...

systems, but do have parallels in other Oceanic languages of nearby

Vanuatu Vanuatu ( or ; ), officially the Republic of Vanuatu (french: link=no, République de Vanuatu; bi, Ripablik blong Vanuatu), is an island country located in the South Pacific Ocean. The archipelago, which is of volcanic origin, is east of no ...

. *Åshild Næss and Brenda H. Boerger (2008) showed that the complex verbal structures of RSC are derived by normal erosion of verb

morphology Morphology, from the Greek and meaning "study of shape", may refer to: Disciplines * Morphology (archaeology), study of the shapes or forms of artifacts * Morphology (astronomy), study of the shape of astronomical objects such as nebulae, galaxies ...

and grammaticalization of verb serialization commonly found in many Oceanic languages, and thus do not reflect a Papuan substrate. *William James Lackey and Brenda H. Boerger (2021) revises the reconstruction made by Ross and Næss (2008), and outlines in detail some regular correspondences between RSC and Proto-Oceanic consonants that were overlooked, such as ''*s'' > ''t'' (and later ''t'' > ''s'' before /i/). They also conclude that the truncation of syllables in Proto-RSC was primarily driven by

stress Stress may refer to: Science and medicine * Stress (biology), an organism's response to a stressor such as an environmental condition * Stress (linguistics), relative emphasis or prominence given to a syllable in a word, or to a word in a phrase ...

: words that contained a Proto-Oceanic final consonant, being

oxytone An oxytone (; from the grc, ὀξύτονος, ', 'sharp-sounding') is a word with the stress on the last syllable, such as the English words ''correct'' and ''reward''. (A paroxytone is stressed on the penultimate (second-last) syllable. A pr ...

, preserved their final syllable; likewise, syncope (word-medially) took place if the word originally ended in a final consonant, or was trisyllabic. Ross and Næss (2007) offer a retrospective conclusion: :How then did it come about that Stephen Wurm thought the RSC eefs – Santa Cruzlanguages were Papuan? In small measure because the reconstruction of POc had in the 1970s not progressed to where it is today. In larger measure because the typological features he found in the RSC languages had yet to be documented in other Oceanic languages. And because the RSC languages had undergone phonological changes which rendered some cognates unrecognizable and led eventually to the replacement of others.

Background

Classification

References

Further reading